40 research outputs found
Derivatives combining the fragment of pyrazinamide and 4-aminosalicylic acid as antimycobacterial compounds
No full textCharles University Faculty of Pharmacy in Hradec Králové Department of Pharmaceutical chemistry and Pharmaceutical analysis Author: Petr Šlechta Supervisor: doc. PharmDr. Jan Zitko, Ph.D. Consultant: MSc. Ghada Basem Bouz, Ph.D. Title of diploma thesis: Derivatives combining the fragment of pyrazinamide and 4-aminosalicylic acid as antimycobacterial compounds According to WHO, tuberculosis (TB) is the leading cause of death from a single infectious organism worldwide and the number of cases with drug resistant TB is still increasing, creating the need for new antituberculotics. Therefore, we report design, synthesis and antimicrobial evaluation of a series of hybrid compounds combining different pyrazinamide derivates and p- aminosalicylic acid as potential antituberculotic agents. The compounds were prepared by mixing different pyrazinecarboxylic acids, after activation by 1,1'-carbonyldiimidazole, with p- aminosalicylic acid in dimethylsulfoxide as a solvent. Obtained compounds were in vitro tested for their antimycobacterial activity against M. tuberculosis H37Rv, M. tuberculosis H37Ra and four other mycobacterial strains. Prepared compounds were also in vitro screened for antibacterial, antifungal, and cytotoxic (HepG2) activity. Most compounds showed antimycobacterial activity in range of..
Breast Cancer Disparities Among Women in Underserved Communities in Northwest Indiana
No full textBackground: Breast cancer is the second most common cancer found in women, after skin cancers. Research has discovered that factors such as race, socioeconomic status, and education affect both screening levels and cancer staging at diagnosis. Black women as well as lower-income individuals usually have higher grade staging as well as higher mortality. Since Lake County medical systems serve both high and low-income communities we wanted to analyze breast cancer staging in Lake County to see how it compares to national trends.
Methods: “Hospital A” provided data from 393 positive breast cancer diagnoses along with the clinical staging at diagnosis from January 2019 to December 2022 for both high and low-income neighborhoods. Using a Mantel-Haenszel chi-square test we compared staging levels among the different income neighborhoods as well as among different races.
Results: When looking at total staging data from 2019-2022, there was a significant difference between the race category of "Black or African American" and "White" population staging data. White patients tend to have lower stages, during initial clinical diagnosis, compared to Black patients. The "Other" category, which included all other races that did not fit into the "Black or African American" or "White Category" such as Asians, also had lower staging upon diagnosis when compared to the “Black or African American” group but no statistically significant difference with the “White” population.
Conclusion: Our data showed that in Lake County, Indiana there are disparities in cancer staging among both income levels as well as race. The lower-income areas in our study were correlated with a greater proportion of Black residents as compared to the higher income areas. This data shows that Lake County needs to be more proactive in screening its minority communities
Social Determinants of Health Factors Associated with Breast Cancer Screening in Underserved Communities of Northwest Indiana
No full textBackground: Despite breast cancer being the second most common type of cancer found in female patients, a large number of female patients have not received a mammogram in the past two years. This disparity is partly due to factors related to social determinants of health. The effects of social determinants of health on positive breast cancer screenings are clearly present in Northwest Indiana, a region containing vastly differing communities with a wide range of income levels and diversity. Nearly two decades of patient data from this area can inform us which social determinants of health are associated with increased risk for breast cancer.
Methods: “Hospital System A”, located in Lake County, Indiana, provided data from 111,564 mammograms from the year 2006 to the end of 2023. These 18 years of data provide patient zip code, age, race, insurance category, and screening results. A proportion of positive screenings was calculated for each group and compared using Chi-Square tests. Census information such as mean household income, race, and age was gathered for each zip code in Northwest Indiana and was tested on proportion of positive screenings by regression analysis.
Results: When comparing zip codes of Northwest Indiana, lower mean household income was associated with higher rates of breast cancer (p-value = 0.0049). Medicare and Medicaid patient groups both had significantly higher rates of breast cancer than private and self-pay groups (p-value = 1.35x10-10, p-value = 0.0032). Race had almost no impact on breast cancer rates.
Potential Impact: Income level has the greatest impact on breast cancer rates. We hypothesize that this relationship may be related to decreased access to care and unhealthy lifestyles because of economic restraints. Additionally, race has little influence on breast cancer rates, which may explain that society may have a greater role in health than individual characteristics
Inkjet printed electrolyte-gated oxide nanoparticle thin-film transistor
No full textLarge-area printed electronics offer a new arena in electronics industry due to their low fabrication cost, simplicity, and compatibility with flexible substrates. The organic and printed electronic product sales were more than US$ 25 billion in 2016 with a predicted future annual growth rate of 14 % globally.
Among many printing methods, inkjet printing is a distinctive printing technique because it is a contact-less, mask-less, and digitally controllable process. It allows the deposition of picolitre droplet on selected areas leading to high-resolution direct patterning and low material waste.
In this thesis, the author proposes the inkjet printing of new thin-film transistors (TFTs) based upon electrolyte-gating and a new In2O3 nanoparticle (NP) ink in which the electrodes and channels were formed by laser ablation. Laser ablation improved the conductive ink channel resolution leading to a smaller channel length through low-temperature processing steps. The author used two electrolytes, i.e., sodium alginate (NaAlg) and composite solid polymer electrolyte (CSPE) based on lithium salt, which allow the use of an in-plane design resulting in relaxed manufacturing tolerance requirements and reduced processing steps.
The TFTs were fabricated by laser-ablating metal-coated glass substrate to form coplanar TFT structures followed by inkjet printing the NP ink and electrolytes. The entire process was performed in a normal atmospheric condition with a low thermal budget (≤ 150 ºC). The fabricated TFTs operate at a very low voltage (< 1.5 V) with an ON/OFF current ratio exceeding 104. The NaAlg electrolyte-gated TFTs exhibit a field-effect mobility of 0.78 cm2 V-1 s-1 and excellent durability with over 1500 switching cycles and over ten days with no cytotoxicity in vitro, indicating that they have the potential to be suitable for low-cost environmentally friendly electronics and biosensor applications. The electrical performance of the TFTs was improved by employing high ionic conductivity CSPE resulting in TFTs with a mobility of 1.1 cm2 V-1 s-1. The author also reports a comparison in the electrical performance between inkjet printing of electrolyte-gated TFTs with laser-ablation patterning of their passive circuit elements and TFTs with electrodes patterned using conventional photolithography. The field-effect mobility of the laser-ablated TFTs was found to be 1.65 cm2 V-1 s-1 compared with 25 cm2 V-1 s-1 for the photolithography processed TFTs. Primary results are also reported indicating a potential use of the laser to sinter NPs instead of thermal treatment.
This is the first time, to the best of the author knowledge, where electrolyte-gated TFTs based on NP semiconductor ink are fabricated by uniting inkjet printing and laser ablation processes. This approach complies with relaxed fabrication requirements and leads to high TFT performance denoting that the low-cost and simple method is a suitable choice for inkjet printable electronics such as logic circuits for functional integrated sensor systems across a broad collection of substrates. The inkjet-printed TFT arrays can also be used in large-area pressure sensor matrices for applications like e-skin
Proposal for the design of the protection system against fire, fourth of pumps and dimensioning of the supply tank of the Battalion of Support of Services for Military Education (BASEM)
No full textLa declaración universal de los derechos humanos, en su artículo tercero reza que: ‘Todo individuo tiene derecho a la vida, la libertad y a su seguridad personal’. Consecuente a lo anterior, la vida humana se debe salvaguardar bajo cualquier acción y las actividades que cada persona realice en sus diferentes aspectos cotidianos, deben ir acompañadas de unos estándares de seguridad establecidos, especialmente en lugares en donde exista un alto riesgo de padecer algún tipo de contratiempo que atente contra su integridad física y mental. Alrededor del mundo, las sociedades se han tejido con el fin de buscar un bienestar tanto individual como colectivo y poder de este modo aumentar sus índices de seguridad, en consecuencia de esto, se han creado diversos métodos y leyes que ayuden a perpetuar los mismos y a prevenir las adversidades que cotidianamente se presentan en el entorno , entre estos métodos existen todos aquellos que tienen como fin la protección del ser humano ante los incendios ocasionados por fenómenos naturales o de manera antrópica. En el caso de Colombia, se han adoptado diversos tipos de normas de orden internacional para la prevención y protección de las diversas conflagraciones, entre las que se encuentra el Reglamento Técnico Colombiano de Construcción Sismo Resistente NSR-10, el cual en sus títulos ‘J’ y ‘K’ presentan los requisitos mínimos para la mitigación de incendios en cada uno de los tipos de edificios, la clasificación de riesgo de los mismos y sus respectivas recomendaciones, la NTC 2301 es la Norma Técnica Colombiana que presenta todos los requisitos que deben poseer la instalación de sistemas de rociadores automáticos, entre otros. Debido a lo anteriormente expuesto, el Batallón de Apoyo de Servicios para la Educación Militar (BASEM), ha decidido ceder el espacio al autor del presente documento, para que haga una propuesta que tenga como fin el diseño del sistema contra incendios por medio de rociadores automáticos. El proyecto tiene como lineamientos las directrices de las normas anteriormente mencionadas.The universal declaration of human rights, in its third article reads that: 'Every individual has the right to life, liberty and personal security'. Consequent to the above, human life must be safeguarded under any action and the activities that each person carries out in their different daily aspects, must be accompanied by established safety standards, especially in places where there is a high risk of suffering some type of mishap that threatens your physical and mental integrity. Around the world, societies have been woven with the aim of seeking individual and collective well-being and thus be able to increase their security indexes, as a result of this, various methods and laws have been created to help perpetuate these and prevent the adversities that occur daily in the environment, among these methods there are all those whose purpose is the protection of human beings in the face of fires caused by natural phenomena or anthropically. In the case of Colombia, several types of international norms have been adopted for the prevention and protection of the various conflagrations, among which is the Colombian Technical Regulation of Resilient Earthquake Construction NSR-10, which in its titles' J 'and' K 'present the minimum requirements for the mitigation of fires in each of the types of buildings, their risk classification and their respective recommendations, NTC 2301 is the Colombian Technical Standard that presents all the requirements that must be met. have the installation of automatic sprinkler systems, among others. Due to the above, the Battalion of Support of Services for Military Education (BASEM), has decided to give the space to the author of this document, so that he makes a proposal that has as purpose the design of the system against fires by means of sprinklers automatic The project has as guidelines the guidelines of the aforementioned standards.Ejercito Nacional de Colombi
Corrigendum to “Esophageal motility disorders among elderly patients: An international multicenter study” [Digestive and Liver Disease 57 (2025) 1615-1621]
No full textThe authors regret that the name of author Francesco Calabrese was spelt incorrectly. The correct spelling appears above and the online article has been amended. The authors would like to apologise for any inconvenience caused
GEOLOGICAL CHARACTERIZATION OF SIWAQA TRAVERTINE, SOUTH AMMAN, JORDAN
No full text<p>Siwaqa travertine crops out, about 70 km away from Amman, just south of Siwaqa strike-slip fault. Calcite is the most dominant constituent. Travertine occurs in two main forms: laminated and vesicular (vuggy). Representative surface samples of travertine have been analyzed for the determination of their physical-mechanical properties. It was found that the pore structure, which was previously determined by the author by employing velocity of sound, porosity and degree of saturation, is the most important factor affecting the strength and other physical properties of the stone.</p>
Adsorptive removal of mercury from water by adsorbents derived from date pits
No full textThe current work presented here focuses on the remediation of mercury from water using modified low-cost materials. Modified date pits, low cost, minimal pretreatment steps and locally abundant agricultural waste materials were effectively employed as an adsorbent for remediating Hg2+ from aqueous media. Physical and chemical modification were developed such as thermal roasting (RDP), sulfur (SMRDP) and silane (SIMRDP) based modifications. Results showed that maximum adsorption by RDP was at pH 6, AC and both modifications was at pH 4. Furthermore, RDP has exothermic adsorption mechanism while AC, SMRDP, and SIMRDP have endothermic. All adsorbents except SIMRDP have spontaneous adsorption process. SEM analysis showed that the surface morphology of RDP was not significantly affected by different treatments while surface of AC was affected. The investigation for good adsorbents for Hg2+ uptake from different anthropogenic sources has been carried out by many investigators worldwide towards having a safe environment. In the current study, the highest Hg2+ adsorption of SMRDP was relatively high compared to other known adsorbents. - 2019, The Author(s).This paper was made possible by UREP grant # (17-066-1-004) from the Qatar national research fund (a member of Qatar foundation). The statements made herein are solely the responsibility of the author(s). The authors would like to thank the Environmental Science Center – Qatar University in analyzing mercury ions in the samples, and the Central Laboratory Unit at Qatar University for performing the FTIR and SEM for the samples. The authors would also thank Dr Basem Shomar, Ms. Fatma Fahraei, Ms. Mariem Safi, Ms. Sana Khan, Ms. Maymoona Ayesh, and Ms. Haya Alduroobi for their participation in this UREP project. Special thanks to Mr. M. Y. Ashfaq for his efforts in reading the final version of the manuscript. The publication of this article was funded by the Qatar National Library.Scopu
